To conclude this year's business and technology trends, I found a couple of posts that sum up nicely both where we've been and where we're going as we head into 2012.

Whether we believe in calendar year distinctions, everything in life is a cycle with an end and a beginning. Wherever we come from and whereto we're going, at any point in time, there we are.

Ends, beginnings, the dangerous effects of reading, and too much buzz

Is a fitting title for a year end post. I've long mused on the dangers of analysis paralysis and inflating expectations.

My take is we often focus so much on where we've been that we fail to see where we're going, we place more faith in the writings of popular personalities, instead of believing in our own mastery with more practice, and we keep giving power away in exchange for very little value back.

I cannot help but think about Pixar's own Buzz Lightyear at this point and say: cando.

Saturday Three

The points that Jeremiah makes to support his argument are very tactical, not looking at the strategic changes going on technologically or societally. His ‘trends’ aren’t really trends, but narrow extrapolations from recent events masquerading as business advice.

... the ‘audience’ — by which Owyang means everyone else. I will put to the side that social media was supposed to be about the end of the audience — Jay Rosen’s famous ‘the people formerly known as the audience’ — and simply state that Owyang and the others groups he appears to be concerned about have largely internalized a media-centric worldview, while mouthing mostly empty platitudes about the power of social media.

Boyd then lists the rise of the web of flow, and the fall of the web of page, the social revolution and social tools, and social learning, innovation, and curation as part of the larger context in need of examining.

I think we should all agree that getting faster at judging things is bad, but I think the real danger in having a super-efficient-filter is that your default mode is exclusion – you reject long enough and you lose the ability to create things that pass your own filter. You stagnate at work for fear of everything you do being judged like every news article or viral video that you view.

So how do you break the power of consumption? By creating your own things.

Creation builds capacity for the pursuit of freedom, happiness, and plays to your strengths that feed your ability.

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Social media provides huge opportunities is too much buzz, says Schumpter in The Economist:

[...] some of the new social-media technologies have a clown-suit quality to them. They are amusing the first time, but rapidly become tedious.

A new medium: neither rare nor well-done

Most commentary on social media ignores an obvious truth—that the value of things is largely determined by their rarity. The more people tweet, the less attention people will pay to any individual tweet. The more people “friend” even passing acquaintances, the less meaning such connections have.

When everyone is talking at the same time, it becomes even more important to be able to detect and parse what matters most to you.

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With so much emphasis still placed upon being noticed, plenty of opportunity is left in the noticing arena.

I like to thank people frequently and creatively throughout the year. Especially clients.

It's not unusual to receive home baked goods, advance copies of books, cards, and more as appropriate and relevant from me.

In fact, some have remarked I have such good taste, I need to share more of the things I like. Which is what I'll be doing on Pinterest (more on that in a later post).

There's something special in keeping with tradition.

It's not about the calendar. That's an artificial construct. It's about acknowledging and celebrating the contributions of all the individuals that make up a community.

Ever since I started this blog, I've set aside the day before New Year's Eve to pause and recognize the people I'm grateful to have met and collaborated with throughout the year.

Relationships develop over time, and they are a real asset in the real world. Because they lead to getting things done.

A special thank you to site sponsors

Many of you are looking to delve deeper into local marketing automation next year. And you know that the introductions I make on this site are based upon authentic usefulness. Which is why I dedicate a maximum of two spots on the sidebar for sponsored connections.

These are both good reasons why, if you haven't already done so, you should watch this video where Pete Gombert, CEO, Balihoo explains the evolving local marketing landscape.

Balihoo is a sponsor of Conversation Agent and they have not asked me to write this post.

To the growing list of Premium Newsletter subscribers

This is an appointment I enjoy especially. So thank you for engaging back with thoughts and comments about the articles.

There are all kinds of cool things I'm exploring, including special offers and trials as bonus for 2012. I'm also encouraging more businesses to step forward and partner with me to give this list first dibs on products.

To conference organizers

This year I enjoyed the privilege of speaking at many events, including such prestigious and well attended conferences as SxSW Interactive with a solo presentation, Vocus User Group, Mesh in Toronto, The New York Times Small Business Summit in NYC, and WOMMA.

In fact, we had such a great time at Social IRL in St. Louis this past November, that we're taking the social customer conversation to the next level to rethinking business next February. So mark your calendars and join us in Kansas City in a short few weeks.

In 2012, I'll be also traveling to Europe for some in depth events. Stay tuned for details.

Many thanks to those who comment here

I am especially grateful to those who take a few moments of their precious time to engage in the comments at this site. The competition for attention with social networks is intense. And I consider your comments part of what makes this site special.

To Disqus or not to Disqus?

I've installed Disqus commenting on this site.

However, SAY media tells me that if I turn that on, all the previous comments we wrote using the TypePad commenting system will not be visible. They will still be there, all 10,333 of them. We just won't see them in the blog.

The advantages of using Disqus is the system's portability, the fact that it's centered around you and your profile, and you can integrate it with email and Engagio. I'm thinking that's what Fred Wilson did at his site (also on TypePad) -- he just switched one day and never looked back.

My thinking is either go full in with a commenting system that works, Disqus, or full out, actually closing the comments like I've been doing with Saturday posts on business and technology trends, and just hold the conversation on the Google+ page.

What do you think?

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I would be remiss if I didn't thank Mitch Joel for having me as a guest on SPOS podcast twice this year, and Bob Knorpp for inviting me to comment on The Bean Cast a couple of times as well. In fact, stay tuned for information on a special Bean Cast show recording announcement early in 2012.

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Thanks go to all of you who read, link to, and share these posts all over the world. Your ideas and energy mean a lot to furhering the conversation.

One thought I had this morning as I was re-reading my own blog post from a couple of days ago is that although everyone talks about how valuable listening is, few are willing to acknowledge it as a skill. Fewer yet are prepared to reward it... isn't there even a saying that says we're prepared to kill the messenger?

When paired with remembering, listening is akin to honoring. Which gets us back to closing the gap between promises made and promises delivered.

I had this G+ exchange with Jan Hemmingsen. He says, "The problem is mostly that the communication doesn't go full circle. Organizations communicate and are thus listened to, only they are often deaf to anything, but their own voice... Sadly.."

It's a misconception that corporations listen to themselves. Mostly don't. Which is part of the problem.

Yet, what they don't listen to is their need to do some hard thinking for themselves and figure out what they do well and what they need to stop doing to find what they haven't realized about their business. Big picture listening and disciplined doing.

Said another way, they don't get out of their own way. It's a known/acknowledged problem. All because they're busy not listening to themselves. As an example of this point, think about how many organizations take their own internal skills and people for granted.

You're awesome in two ways to the average company, from the outside as external collaborator, and seen from behind as you take your leave.

When we talk about instilling and living core values, we're talking about speaking clearly and acting appropriately. And you can do that when you know yourself. You know yourself after doing the hard thinking and getting clarity around what different things mean and how they relate.

Discipline and perseverance

This is the way marketing should have always been done and it's only because of tough times that marketing now has to be done with the discipline of management rather than the heavily subsidized freedom of the artist.

When you do that, you have messages like Apple's marketing philosophy (by Mike Markkula), which you see above: clarity, simplicity, and actionability. Empathy, focus, and impute go to the core of Apple's model of influence and understanding what to look for, what to add or take away, and so on.

This goes back to my model of influence and whether you even understand the importance of analytics (listening and observing) and how this is linked to feedback on what you should stop doing or start doing.

Big picture listening

By just saying you need to collect and analyze data, all nuance is lost. Setting the course, adjusting as needed, and staying in it for the long haul takes discipline and drill. It takes a lot of doing.

You almost need to break down the modern marketing method -- communicating, conversation, listening and observing --- and match it to the right marketing task -- executions -- which lead to a variety of objectives all done with the right intent or influence.

Otherwise you risk following the way of the management guru and what matters is not what you say (and do) but the passion with which you say it. Everyone nods in approval, high energy in the room, and the business is left alone, picking up the tab.

The Webs registrars weave

Deliberately breaking a promise made to customers increases the brand dissonance and decreases trust, which means they are going to need to trade more to get your business. Brand is more valuable than flow -- you can get more flow for your brand dollar.

Yet companies continue to increase risk by doing stupid things like letting a customer hang for a meager $4.99 charge.

I had a similar situation with another registrar a couple of weeks ago, which is what led me to reach out to the community to compile a useful guide to buying Web domains. You will note there are several registrars on the list, yet very few are companies people would actually recommend.

A sin of omission is still a sin

In my case the registrar omitted to follow through on a request clearly stated repeatedly (supposedly on a recorded line). Then customer service never admitted to the company's lack of action, and subsequently dragged its feet on correcting the error of their ways invoking security measures.

They must think customers are morons. I'm quite familiar with all kinds of managed services, collocation and hosting procedures. I wrote guides and tracked information on those topics for years.

Saying "I'm sorry you feel that way" is not an apology. Don't just stand there and babble. Do something to fix the problem. Who writes those scripts? There is such a thing as a sin of omission.

Let it go daddy

Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation–but we can clearly do better. It’s very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it.

Which statement does Adelman really mean? Do customers not read between the lines? How many decide not to bother moving? How many take a "wait and see" approach? The company picked a very visible fight.

Is there a fresh supply of new customers coming in forever? Eventually word gets around, people compare notes, and we're in the season of making promises... and renewing domains. It gets to a point where the pain to move is lower than that to stay.

Customers get to make a statement of their own with action. They can take control of their promises to their clients and customers in turn by doing something.

What happens next? Get an agency to develop a new blitz campaign? Run deep discounts to lure people in or back, lock the door and throw away the key? How long before you run out of marketing budgets with this kind of shopping spree?

Companies need to develop the most practice in speaking clearly and acting appropriately in their relationship with customers though every decision they make. Deliberately breaking promises weakens a business and can prove costly.

This looks like so much fun. Hard work, sure. But blazingly cool. The article about the rise of the Paris bike messenger caught my eye.

My mode of transport used to be a bicycle when I lived in Italy.

It was my mother's bike when she was a kid, a full size beauty I sanded and hand painted white in my teens. I installed a basket up front so could carry a modest load of fresh produce and cheese from the open market. A satchel across and to the side, and I was all set.

That's how I built my quads and calves for running, by the way. An overpass stood between my home and the center of town. Very long and gradual on one side, and steep on the other. A guaranteed workout at least twice a day.

Which is what it took to get anywhere around the city. So when I saw this article about bike messengers, I thought about the uneven roads, and the long distances of Paris. This is not why it caught my eye, though.

A renaissance for messengers

What the article describers is actually a renaissance for bike messengers in Paris.

Bicycle racing (and much of what we think of modern bicycle design) arose directly from the newspaper porteurs of Paris, who shuttled loads of papers at great speed from press to newsstand at the turn of the last century.

The papers began sponsoring porteur races as publicity stunts to demonstrate how quickly they could get news to the streets. The racers would ride from point to point in the city, picking up and dropping off up to 80 pounds of papers at a time.

After a while, the routes began taking in nearby cities. Eventually, the papers were dropped, and bicycle racing was born. I believe the first city-to-city race was Paris-Brest-Paris (still run today), and from the PBP came Le Tour de France.

All modern sport cycling descends from the couriers of Paris. Started as publicity stunts where the message was the messenger: we deliver your news faster than the other guy.

Going the distance

Delivery distances in Paris are greater than in New York City, because businesses are spread out. Which is why many messengers struggle to remain competitive against the long-established scooter-driven delivery systems.

The trend is picking up, however. As Patrick Boudard, founder Urban Cycle said in the article, “People in offices just like the bike messengers.”

“They’re young, they’re athletic, they’re friendly. It’s a much different mentality than the scooter messengers, and that’s appealing.”

Today Urban Cycle commands a solid share of the delivery market. And I cannot help but think that the trend is also due to broader economic, environmental, technological and social developments.

Messenger as message

I thought about the social aspect of this renaissance as well. The human contact of getting to know the person delivering your parcel. The fact they had to traverse a long distance to get it to you. And without clogging traffic, nor the environment.

The image is also fitting the current business environment, complete with publicity stunts. Every single day a news story is delivered with great speed from startup to tablets to demonstrate how quickly we could crank out new businesses, with the help of technology.

Right now, it's about the apps, platforms, or products and a few individuals winning in Silicon Valley and (starting) in New York City. I cannot help but think that the rise of technology and spread of information will help bring more business to other urban centers and areas.

Eventually we'll stop focusing so much on the few lucky entrepreneurs going from start to exit as fast as possible, and put more emphasis on helping create a whole ecosystem of new businesses.

The modern business infrastructure descending from current entrepreneurs. Those who went the distance and stuck around to deliver more teaching and resources, and help make better promises.

Because, you see, it is not the 80 pounds of data that we miss. We have plenty of that. What we miss is the people who can help with the query sets. Asking the right questions. Plus those who are going to do something with it, combining assets creatively.

And we need a very different mentality than the current delivery system for business. We need a renaissance of messengers who can deliver their promises over greater distances, at speed.

I was in New York City a couple of weeks ago with a few minutes to explore and thought of looking in the Public Library. I usually walk briskly by it on may way to or from a meeting.

It was warm, quiet, and tastefully decorated, as you can see in this photo I snapped with my iPhone. I welcomed the atmosphere in the midst of a fifth avenue busy with shoppers and more colorful decorations.

It invited quiet reflection. I also noticed something else there -- without the use of smartphones inside, people were making eye contact.

Technology is great. It allows me to be in touch with my family even when I'm not physically with them. Nothing can ever beat the human touch.

The maturity of digital and social media is showing, even as it's still unevenly distributed. We're not there when it comes to conversation just yet. It's still very much about social gestures (shares/likes/+1), content, and comments.

With maturity comes a shift where technology fades in the background, and what people want to do comes even more to the fore.

Digital as body language, content as style

Which is why the links I'm sharing this week revolve around the concept of developing or using a point of view, a specific style.

When I first started writing online in a conversational style (vs. writing web copy for business) a dozen years ago, content was your body language. There was not much to do on sites, forums, or listservs but to write what you knew.

Media is much richer today. And there are many more voices. Which means there is even greater opportunity to design experiences -- creation and combination both stand out based on style.

Saturday Three

The three stories that caught my eye this week are:

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It's 2011, some people have been blogging for a dozen years or more. Can you still be a successful blogger? In a very engaging interview at Australian publication The Vine, Liberty London Girl reveals how she got her start in a very competitive niche: fashion.

[...] if you are applying critical thinking, sound judgment, a balanced viewpoint, historical reference points, and an informed worldview then your view is a valid as the next print journalist. I would hold up a phenomenal critic like Alex Fury at SHOWStudio as the perfect example of the new wave of online fashion critics, whose career wouldn’t have been possible without the online space.

Having a point of view is key to developing a following and readership.

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The jury is still out on whether Q&A features make a site. What happens when the feature is what the network is all about? As reported by Liz Gannes at AllThings Digital, Quora moves beyond writing to curating content.

Quora Boards is basically a social bookmarking tool. Users can curate posts from Quora, links from around the Web, and other content. It’s similar to other sites like Pinterest — though Pinterest tends to be more visual and product-oriented — and Snip.it.

[...] Quora has evolved away from its original question-and-answer format. Now the service wants “to connect you with everything you want to know about.”

Will top users see Boards as a useful addition and stick around to curate?

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They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Illustrations are worth even more, because they are well suited to compress a whole story in a small space. Tom Fishburne on the 12th day of Christmas illustrates a retail trend:

Retailers started post-Christmas markdowns extra early this year.

[...] What is notably not on promotion this Christmas is the iPad2 and iPhone 4S, reminding us that it’s more important than ever for marketers to create products with real meaning.

The brands and products that help us tell better stories, the ones we connect with, earn a bigger share of wallet.

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Storytelling is a type of content that will not go out of style any time soon. What's on your website?

When I came to the US many years ago, I expected to stay only six months. It was all I was contracted for and it felt like a dream come true nonetheless.

A dream I had had since the tender age of six, when I published my first poems.

Things don't always turn out the way we expect. I worked harder and longer than I could have ever imagined, and I was able to make those six months stretch into six years... and the rest is history, as they say.

This post is about how breakthroughs can happen with very small things and am proud to feature Ekaterina Walter video from TEDx PeachTree.

Ekaterina is Intel's social media strategist. She's a genuine, smart, and warm person, one I am honored to call a friend. We connected instantly when we were introduced at SxSW.

A family filled with women for many generations (my grandmother just passed), and although we could not ever complain, we were certainly not swimming in anything but the public pool. I remember the austerity as a very young child in Italy.

Say what you will about me, I am no wall flower.

Things often turn out differently than we expect. My breakthrough came from the chance to make a fresh start. People who are bilingual know this, it is not just a matter of using a different set of words and sounds. Speaking another language literally rewires your brain.

There are cultural considerations as well. It's like having a 3D view of the world, enriched with the perspectives of our roots as well as the opportunities that come with trading places.

Have you ever relocated to a different city?

Multiply that feeling many times over for a country. All of a sudden you get back the freedom to be who you are. Without any-one or context holding you back.

Here's the thing though. When I came to the US, I was working two jobs while going to school and I took a chance working one job and going to school from here to there. The change that made what I did possible was in me.

I caught the opportunity without knowing where it would lead. Every day, we have the ability to make choices, 440 minutes to give and take a second chance. Things don't always turn out the way we expect or plan.

They're often better. Breakthroughs come in small packages, one minute at a time, in the moment. There are plenty of second chances starting now.